New Life Pending.....

Iwantanewlife

Straight into the tide over pot, so thats now up to £807 which im pleased with, obviously anything that isnt used (hopefully not a lot of it!) will then be thrown straight to debts after my first pay from the new company, saying that, im so tempted to actually get it to £1k and then keep it as the fixed EF, especially now ive got a car. I will have a think about that over the next couple of weeks and see how thing pan out!

Completely agree, my main bills stay the same, and then things like food and fuel, pretty much stay the same apart from if its a long month or im hosting something. Things like clothes, 'going out' and family days tend to change according to knowing what ive got coming out. So for example, if i know my son is going to need new trainers etc, i tend to move bits around on a month by month basis.

BlytheDoll

Oh yes, I do read, and find it interesting to see how you are getting on. Great news on the £150, and for putting this aside. I can see that you are keen to overpay the CC, depending upon your month/new salary/last salary etc, so perhaps when your able maybe do half.. and the other half to start your EF

I need to look at my pots, I think I may have made too many? At the moment I am just guestimating on some of them, however my annual bills (car/house insurance) I am putting some aside each month. I have also been saving for an appliance fund for the past 12 months, just in case I needed a new washer, dryer, vacuum or dishwasher. All have been fine this year so I don’t know whether I should move that pot to somewhere else, or just keep adding. Definitely spent more on Christmas gifts than I would have thought, so I must make a present pot essential for next year. Food shopping all came in under clubcard points and vouchers that were saved all year so no additional spend this month for us.

You are only a few short months away from being debt free which is a fantastic result. I am big into carbooting purchases, and this year I have only brought 1 dress from a shop, all my other clothes came from the car boot, aswell as all my body lotions, shower creams and perfumes. ( and much more!) We have had some great finds this year, that keep us going through the winter months when carboots are closed. I also brought some nice gifts and sets (all new) to put in a present box, so that when a birthday comes up, I can look through the gift box. I would love to be able to get most of my gifts next year from the carboot. I can literally go all week without opening my purse, based upon my Carboot finds.

You are doing really well, be proud of the new you x

Iwantanewlife

That’s amazing! What a great idea!! You have inspired me to give that a go next year. My mission is to go through all my stuff and get all the clothes and trainers etc on eBay. Honestly I’m disgraced to say I have so many clothes and shoes, some with tags on, and some that have just never been worn. I’ve got 7 years of my sons stuff, I kept all the nice or designer stuff with the intention of selling but never have. It’s crazy really as I am a really tidy person and I hate clutter so I would of thought I would like to get rid of everything, instead I just bag it up and put it in the loft. Out of sight and all that lol.

You sound like you’ve done really well with your pots! I have loads too, I like it that way. However, I havnt got an appliance pot and again I think that’s a really good idea!

Thank you for your kind comments and the inspiration! X

Iwantanewlife

Oh and in the excitement of the unexpected money I forgot to add that one poll finally paid out today. So for this month I earnt and cashed - £75 from 20coggs, £10 from Shoppix and £30 from one poll (yet to clear in my account). Starting afresh with them all now apart from 20coggs that you can only do once.

bd80s

Excellent little wins for you with the bank and survey sites:beer:

BlytheDoll

Merry Christmas.. EBay is something I love! Clothing can be very time consuming with the listing and photographing, here’s my top tips..

1. Write yourself a listing description template, this can then be used each time, with small alterations
2. Take photos as square (this fills up the box nicely, and makes your items stand out)
3. Take lots of photos (use all 12 if possible), front, back, close up of material, tag, washing instructions, lay a tape measure in image (for bust measurement, length and/or waist) (save time writing all of this)
4. The first image is really important, so choose one that shows everything in it that’s for sale, (trainers, out of the box, nicely displayed on top) (lego Set, built up, with box behind and instructions) (coat on nice coat hanger, buttoned up) etc.. The pictures are sooo important, when people are just searching through, you want to be able to draw them in to get the best price.
5. Title.. again along with the images the title is key. If you are selling clothes make sure in the title you put key words.. Brand, size, product, colour, try to use up all of the characters, for example... Next Ladies Size 12 Black Dress Short Sleeved Office Wear or Monsoon Ladies 10 Gold Glittery Party Dress NEW UNWORN
6. Listing similar items will save you time, if you did trainers to start with, once you have done the first listing, you can sell similar which will then copy all of the item specifics, which will save you time having then to change them, along with your description template.
7. Don’t be afraid to add to the description if something is wrong with the item, ( you can often turn a negative to a positive) for eg. Button missing on sleeve of coat, however this is not noticeable and does not detract from the beautiful warm fabric.
8. List on fixed price for a week with best offer, if unsold, then list on a 7 day auction, with low starting price, after all with those fab images and description who could refuse a bargain?
9. If you want to be organised with posting, wrap the item after listing, stick a note on the parcel/ bag, of item title/item number, it’s then easy once they have paid.
10. Don’t forget to add 10% on top of posting costs, as the fee they take will also come off postage, so you don’t want to be paying more postage then you will actually receive.
11. Finally have fun doing it, after all it’s extra money

You probably might know these thing anyway, but it can all help get you a better price, and less hassle after a sale, would you buy a crumpled dress with one picture shown lying on the kitchen floor, next to the dog food bowl, with no description and a title as Next dress..

I once sold all of my kids GCSE guides, even though a couple of pages had been written in, I wrote in the description that.. these were an invaluable resource for the Geography GCSE course which resulted in my child obtaining an A grade at GCSE. This was true, and the books were soon snapped up, and having cost me say £15 new a couple of years beforehand, I was still able to get £10 each for them

Hope this gives you some further inspiration to get them bags down from the attic x

Iwantanewlife

Blythedoll- thank you so much for taking the time to write all that out for me, so kind and will be so useful!

Iwantanewlife

Good Morning! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas.

So some of you may remember that I wrote some complaint letters a few months back about unfair selling on old accounts. HSBC have just sent me a cheque for £287 for charges plus interest, back in 2010!

[Deleted User]

Wow, well done that's great news!

[Deleted User]

You're doing fantastic xx